


is not the past all shadow

by MistressKat



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: All Saints' Day, Angst, Challenge Response, Community: lewis_challenge, Gen, Other: See Story Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 09:25:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressKat/pseuds/MistressKat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>How can anything begin when everything has ended?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	is not the past all shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Started ages ago and finished for the [Lewis Fright Fest 2013](http://lewis-challenge.livejournal.com/67190.html). Title from [The Dream](http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/lbyron/bl-lbyron-dream.htm) by Lord Byron. Thank you to [pushkin666](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pushkin666) for looking this over.
> 
>  
> 
> **See end note for a warning (spoilery for a fic)**

"You're late," Robbie says. He's waiting in the office when James comes in. "What kind of example is this setting for the junior officers?"  
  
James throws his briefcase onto the desk and boots up the computer, sitting down. "Probably not a very good one," he agrees placidly. "But then again, I never signed up to be anyone's example."  
  
Robbie smiles and laces his fingers over his stomach, leaning back in the chair. "Ah lad, it's not the kind of thing you choose. You'll see."  
  
James stares at him for a while, at the grey morning light coming in through the blinds, the way it flows around Robbie's grey suit, like water over stone.  
  
Then he reaches for a file, shifting his attention to work.  
  
  
***  
  
  
"Sir?" Connor materialises at his shoulder like a ginger waif. "Your coffee?"  
  
James bites his lip and accepts the paper cup with a nod of thanks. Connor's a good cop; smart, capable, newly promoted... One of these days she might even stop saying everything like it’s a question.  
  
"I need you to go and interview the victim's wife," he tells her. "I'll take the mistress."  
  
"Sure?" Connor says, glancing over to the police car where a woman is screaming with a complicated mixture of rage and grief. She hadn't known about the wife. "Good luck with that. Sir," Connor adds, and this time her voice is more cheeky than uncertain, and there's an actual smile lurking in the corner of her mouth.  
  
"Off with you, Sergeant," James says gruffly.  
  
Connor leaves, but she's still smiling.  
  
"You like her," Robbie observes. He sounds smug.  
  
James sighs. "She's alright. Young."  
  
Robbie laughs, but it's tinged with something not quite happy. "So are you," he says, "So are you. You just need to remember it."  
  
James recognises regret when he hears it. He doesn't comment on it though.  
  
  
***  
  
  
"Cup of tea?" James scratches his stomach idly through his pyjama top as he waits for the kettle to boil. From the corner of his eye he can see Robbie sitting at the table, wearing the same yellow tie.  
  
"Funny," he says wryly. "A real comedian, you are."  
  
"It's seven..." James glances at the oven clock as he sits down with his tea and a plate of toast, "...fourteen. Give me break here."  
  
"Exactly! Seven bloody fourteen on a bloody Saturday!" Robbie's mouth is thin with disapproval. "When are you going to give yourself a break, man?"  
  
James shrugs, contemplating a jar of raspberry jam.  
  
Robbie sighs and changes tactics. "Have you spoken to Laura?"  
  
"Of course I have. On Thursday. We were both in court for that Jones case."  
  
"Pssht!" Robbie waves a hand like shooing a fly. "That's not what I'm talking ab--"  
  
"With all due respect, Sir," James snaps, "You're not the one having that conversation, are you?" He gets up and dumps his half finished breakfast on the counter, stalking out of the kitchen.  
  
Robbie doesn't follow.  
  
  
***  
  
  
"Well," Laura says, regarding him steadily through the open door, "don't just stand there. Come in."  
  
James follows her into her house. He's been here before, of course, for an occasional party, or with Robbie to pick her up or take her home, but it feels different now. He can hear Radio 4 drifting from the kitchen and Laura points him toward the table.  
  
"I was just making breakfast," she says, looking soft and tired in the morning light. "Do you want some?"  
  
James shakes his head and she shrugs, unconcerned, and fixes herself a bowl of cereal. It's some kind of posh mix with nuts and chocolate flakes, not at all what James would have expected if he had ever had the reason to speculate on Dr Hobson's breakfast choices.  
  
"It's shredded wheat on weekdays," Laura says, sitting down opposite him. "But I like to indulge on the weekend. It's good for you."  
  
James can't even remember what that is like. It's almost as if the word itself has become incomprehensible, some language dead and buried. His gaze drifts past Laura to the window behind her, the yellow leaves of the birch, swaying in the breeze.  
  
"It's autumn," he says, like he's only just now noticed it. Maybe because he has.  
  
"My favourite season." Laura crunches on her cereal, watching him with eyes ringed in dark shadows. "Always feels like a new beginning."  
  
James picks up the salt shaker, turning it around and around. "Not this year."  
  
"Yes," Laura says, reaching across the table and stilling his fingers. "Even this year."  
  
James doesn't believe her. How can anything begin when everything has ended?  
  
He lets her hold his hand anyway. They sit like that for a long time, the silence around them full of memories.  
  
  
***  
  
  
“How is she?” Robbie asks that evening. He’s sitting in James’ armchair, elbows on knees, fingers steepled like one of the myriad church towers decorating the Oxford skyline.  
  
James turns the TV on. “Why don’t you go ask her yourself?” he snaps, tired and still so angry, with no one left to be angry at. “Better yet, why don’t you talk to Lyn for a change?” He means it to hurt, but doesn’t know if that’s possible.  
  
Robbie sighs. “Lyn’s got her family.”  
  
‘And I have nothing,’ James thinks. He doesn’t say it out loud though because he knows Robbie would disagree and despite everything he doesn’t want to fight, not about this.  
  
He falls asleep on the sofa, BBC News 24 droning on in the background.  
  
  
***  
  
  
“It’s going to snow,” Robbie says.  
  
James startles; something he hasn’t done in a while. He just wasn’t expecting this, not today.  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says. “It’s barely November.”  
  
They’re standing on the roadside, the steady hum of passing traffic at their back. James is sucking on a cigarette, the winter bleak fields stretching ahead, hemmed in by the criss-cross of asphalt.  
  
“Mark my words,” Robbie says. “You’ll be glad of your wool coat soon.”  
  
James glances at him, at the familiar grey suit and yellow tie, completely inappropriate for the weather.  
  
Not that it matters.  
  
“Did I ever apologise?”  
  
It’s so unexpected and yet not, that James chokes on an inhale, something very much like a sob or laughter, maybe a mixture of both, lodged in his throat.  
  
“Don’t,” he says. It comes out like a plea. “ _Don’t._ You’re _not_ sorry, I know you’re not.”  
  
“Not for doing my job,” Robbie says. “Not for making sure you... that no one else got hurt. No, _never_.”  
  
It’s nothing James doesn’t already know. Nothing other people hadn’t already told him; Laura, Innocent, god even Lyn, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy, her hand so tight in his after the funeral, like she’d been scared to let him go, like he’d been the last connection to her father.  
  
James tosses the cigarette end and grinds it to the road with his shoe. His breath escapes in a white cloud and he watches the lonely trail of it disperse into air. He should get back into the car and drive off. There is paperwork waiting for him at the office and it’s Connor’s birthday, he’d promised to buy the first round for the team if they ever make it to the pub.  
  
“I’m sorry for leaving,” Robbie says then, and James doubles over, arms wrapped around his middle like he’s going to be sick because maybe he is, maybe this unremarkable stretch of road is where he finally loses the control over his body like he’s lost the control over his mind.  
  
It hurts. _God_ , it hurts like someone is wrenching his heart through his chest, and James gasps and gasps, fights for breath even though he wants to just give up. “You didn’t.” He forces the words out, through gritted teeth and rising bile. With a distant sort of shock he realises he’s crying; hot, silent tears splattering to the cold ground at his feet. “You didn’t leave. You’re still here.”  
  
Something warm and soothing passes over him, almost like a touch, like someone running a palm over his head, down his bent back.  
  
“I did, lad. I did,” Robbie says then, his voice unbearably kind and fading. “You just weren’t ready to let me go.”  
  
James crumbles, his knees hitting the gravel, fingers desperately clawing at something, anything to hold on to. There is nothing.  
  
He is alone.  
  
  
***  
  
  
“...carried me out, on his back. Must have been a sight.” James shakes his head and takes another drink.  
  
“He saved your life,” Connor says, sounding awed.  
  
“Robbie had a habit of doing that,” Laura remarks, dropping a packet of crisps on the table and sitting back down. “It seems to be catching too,” she adds, nudging James. “DI Hathaway here has done his fair share of saving, and don’t let him tell you otherwise.”  
  
Connor’s eyes widen and James shoots Laura a glare, though it’s powerless against her soft smile.  
  
“It’s been nice,” Connor says later, when they are pulling on their coats and scarves. “You don’t talk about him much.” She sounds hesitant, like she’s not sure if her observation crosses some kind of invisible line.  
  
James holds the door open for her and they exit into the cold night. It’s a fair comment and James tips his head back and to the side, regarding his sergeant silently. “Perhaps I should at that,” he says. “They’re stories worth telling.”  
  
Connor looks pleased with herself, waving at him jauntily as she heads home. James stands there for a few moments longer before he does the same.  
  
The air smells like snow and in the distance he can hear the bells of Oxford, reminding him that a new day is coming.  Even this year.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Warning:** Major character death


End file.
